Chemotherapy can cause speech disorders
Chemotherapy treatment is identical with cancer patients. Some side effects such as nausea, vomiting, hair loss and weakness is a common thing in those undergoing chemotherapy treatment. However, a recent study claimed that the effect of chemotherapy in high doses can also make it difficult to express them verbally.
Researchers from Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, said the case difficulty talking, recorded two times higher among cancer patients receiving chemotherapy treatment, than those who did not undergo chemotherapy.
In this study, published in the scientific journal Acta Oncologica these researchers’ involved nearly a thousand men with testicular cancer survivor. Respondents were asked to fill out questionnaires about what they felt for approximately eleven years of diagnosis-related illness.
Johanna Skoogh, graduate students from the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg said that those who had undergone chemotherapy for more than two times or more will experience language difficulties such as the one in the pronunciation of the word, to speak somewhat inconsequential, and difficulty completing sentences. And also the survivors of cancer who undergo chemotherapy often reported impaired memory and difficulty concentrating. Even so, the researchers have so far still cannot explain how chemotherapy can cause the disorder. In fact, most research on survivors of breast cancer (hormone therapy) is also impaired cognitive function.
To determine the presence of cognitive dysfunction in a person, in general, will be measured using neuropsychological tests. However, in recent years, the level of accuracy of this test is questionable. Johanna Skoogh also said that our questionnaire contains questions about the difficulties experienced by the survivors in living their daily activities. As far as we know, measuring instruments of this kind has never been used in previous studies. This study is unique because getting a very high response, more than 80 percent, and in the long term.
The researchers could not deny the fact that disruption of other cognitive functions like memory and concentration may also be affected by high dose chemotherapy. The researchers believe that language disorder may be particularly sensitive for detecting cognitive impairment. Language is something we use every day. That is why we can quickly get a clue when someone disturbed the function of speech.
